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I know that many people think that North Korea and its leadership are crazy, but in reality they may be right, and certainly doing what is best for their leadership, and most likely their people. Think I’m crazy? Hear me out:

We have learned from the fact that North Korea blusters a lot that they probably don’t intend to attack the United States, South Korea, or anyone else. We have learned from their history that this is how they act.

Is it not fair for North Korea to learn from the history of the United States how we act?

So what has North Korea learned? They saw the United States in action in Iraq, and to a lesser extent in Libya. They heard Iraq say again and again that they did not have weapons of mass destruction and indeed they did not have them. Yet the United States attacked, killing by some estimates a million people, and wounding many, many more while turning the country upside down.

Iraq learned that the United States does not respect unarmed countries, and has no problems invading and attacking if a country is not armed. Does this not sound like a good reason to arm yourself as well as possible? With nuclear arms, maybe? North Korea was not attacked, because it was armed. Iraq was attacked, because it was not armed. North Korea’s acts seem logical.

Being armed is not worth anything if the United States does not know positively that you are armed. Good enough reason to test your nukes, missiles …? Absolutely!

You must also convince the United States that you will use your nuclear weapons if provoked. What better way to do this than blustering and making threats. This tells the United States that if we cross even the slightest boundaries, they might attack! Brilliant!

Having learned from the United States in Iraq, combined with the fact that the United States would not listen to Iraq, to the U.N., or to anybody else when they wanted to attack, the one way to assure that your people do not get killed or wounded like millions of Iraqis is to have nuclear weapons. Being peaceful obviously did not cut it for Iraq, or for Libya, yet having nuclear arms, and showing that you have them has seemed to work well for North Korea.

In the future, I believe we will find that North Korea will not use their nuclear weapons or start a war. That would be crazy! I believe I have shown that North Korea is not crazy.

Crazy would be attacking an unarmed country for no real reason at a cost of trillions of dollars, and thousands of U.S. lives. And North Korea has got to guard against this type of craziness, which has been exhibited by the United States of America.

Comments

Crazy: detaining Bradley Manning because he put troops in harms way for leaking classified info.Crazier: Putting troops into harms way in Iraq by lying to the public to create support for war.Craziest: Belief in fairy tales and fiction by majority of congress, senate and president.

Also crazy would be negotiating with him in response to his bellicose threats. They (and other repressive regimes) will learn that their bad behavior will be rewarded with concessions, money, food, weapons or recognition. Any kind of appeasement or negotiation in response to these threats will be seen as weakness and will encourage similar behavior both by the DPRK and others.

Crazy is saying - " you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish to have." Our soldiers were scavenging metal from trash heaps and dumps to jury rig their vehicles because the chicken hawks Bush/Cheney /Rumsfeld were so damn clueless and hasty. Now that's crazy.

in the context of Siefe's article, Botany, I don't think your phrase "appeasement or negotiation" quite fits historically. When the British PM Chamberlin flew to Munich (twice!) in 1938 the French/British were already in suppliant mode to Hitler's powerful Nazi Germany. Of course this was awful, as was selling out the Czech's (and after the non-event AnschluB of Austria earlier), but the UK was "appeasing" Hitler, the more powerful (or, crazy) leader/country. We aren't "appeasing" N. Korea at all, its much the weaker power, although under Bush 43 we succumbed to Kim Jong Il's nuclear blackmail. Now, it's different, Japan and S. Korea are more aggressive, we're hardly appeasing N. Korea! Flying the B-2s across S. Korea, a stealthy nuclear-capable plane, was a provocation...diplomacy is better.

well, we didn't give Saddam Hussein free rein and you must see how that worked out, eh? Yes, we should not give in to petty blackmail, but at the same time he has 300 rockets that can hit Japan and our forces in Guam and S. Korea. I'm surprised, Botany, that you didn't suggest a pre-emptive strike...? We need complex, sustained negotiation with little Un, and mainly try to get China to rein in her increasingly crazed ally, N. Korea. A hot war between the two Koreas, with Japan getting involved, really would not help anyone at all.

@ Ken_Volok: Yeah, that would be great. China wouldn't be flooded with NK refugees, as would happen if SK, USA &/or Japan counter-attacked NK. And, China would be the dominant power in NK, whereas SK-USA-Japan would be unwelcome neighbors if we-all took care of the political farce in NK.

Socialism + Cult of Personality = North Korea.Doing the best for your country would be an orderly conversion to capitalist democracy.

Millions of North Koreans starve to death, are placed in gulags for expressing alternate views and murdered by their own government. Blustering to get more food and energy freebies (this is their normal play book) on top of this horrific behavior is not "doing the right thing for your people".

for starters, the crazed, Stalinist, extreme COMMUNIST state in N. Korea shouldn't be confused with your term "Socialism", Willy. Yes, about cult of personality (we have cult of the 1% & free market fundamentalism here), yes that Un is horrible and has starved his people (his Dad did this, Kim Jong Il), yes that USA shouldn't respond to Un's blustering... and with our extraordinary imprisonment rate in the USA, maybe we should be looking to our own "gulag" and why so many in it are men of color?? How can you imagine a move to "capitalist democracy" is some sort of magic wand and they'll all be happy? A mixed economy, lots of entrepreneurship and also some central planning... a 50-year transition to social democracy is needed, as we see in the Arab Spring the non-democratic forces are very strong.